Gyeonggi Province will hold an intensive counseling campaign for workers with unpaid wages from Sept. 14 to Sept. 23, the provincial government announced Thursday.
The province will deploy 120 village labor advisers — community-based labor relations specialists — to help workers file complaints with the regional employment and labor office and navigate the process of recovering unpaid wages.
Continuous counseling and outreach will run at Suwon Station throughout the Sept. 14–23 period, while mobile counseling sessions will be held three times each at Uijeongbu Station and Bucheon's Chunui Station.
The Uijeongbu Station sessions will be conducted in partnership with the Gyeonggi Northern Labor Rights Center, and the Chunui Station sessions with the Bucheon Center for Non-Regular Workers.
Workers who need to file a formal complaint during the counseling process will receive support from village labor advisers at every step, from submitting the complaint to applying for payment of the outstanding wages.
When an employer is unable to pay wages, workers may use the simplified advance payment system, under which the government pays a set portion of the unpaid wages to the worker on the employer's behalf.
Village labor advisers will also help workers apply for and receive payments under that system.
Cases involving serious wage theft identified during the counseling period will be reported to the Gyeonggi Regional Employment and Labor Office, with the province requesting labor inspections and taking an active role in securing full payment. The campaign was organized to help workers facing financial hardship from unpaid wages ahead of the Chuseok holiday recover their rights as quickly as possible.
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